Olympic-esque Blog Day 6 and 7

Changing my sleeping hours to watch Olympic Primetime didn’t quite work out. Was a quiet night on Wednesday. When CTV is reduced to showing 5 minutes of the Team Canada practice you chose the wrong night to watch.

First thing I saw on Primetime was Ben Mulroney so that was a bad sign from the get go.

“Own the Podium” isn’t working out. USA right now has almost tripled the Canadian medal total.

Skier from Norway Askel Svindal talked about it after winning a medal. In particular not letting other countries train at the facilities. Which after the death at the luge course has been something pointed out by many.

“I just want to make something clear. It was VANOC (the Vancouver organizing committee) or Own the Podium or something. It wasn’t the Canadian ski team.”

Before the games he said: “I was supposed to train with the Canadian guys. But then some, like, big dude from VANOC told the coaches that they do a lot of funding for the training and that I wasn’t allowed to be on the slope. I thought it was ridiculous but, whatever.”

Toronto Sun article pointed out something I had forgotten. Norway helping Canada out. It was the coach from Norway who helped Sara Renner by replacing her broken ski pole in the 2006 games which helped her win a Silver medal. VANOC really seems like the Keystone Kops of Olympic Organizers at this point.

And it’s VANOC not Team Canada as he went on to talk about.

“The Canadian team and Alpine Canada are great to work with. Erik Guay gave me a great report on the hill while I was here. I want to thank the Canadian ski teem. It wasn’t them who kept me off the hill.”

And Norway is ahead of Canada in the medal standings.

Congratulations to Christine Nesbitt on her Gold medal. Saw her medal presentation last night. Sure it’s been overshadowed in the Canadian media today because of hockey. One reason I don’t like the pros at the games was the possibility of taking attention away from others. At 6am when Olympic Morning began hockey was the top story. Guess I imagined a Canuck won a Gold medal.

Getting back into the swing of things after a couple of days away. Hoping to keep putting a post each day during the games.